


Curiosity Killed the Cat

by Cali_brate



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s02e07 Society of the Blind Eye, i'm not sure how to tag things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24313783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cali_brate/pseuds/Cali_brate
Summary: Defeating the Society of the Blind Eye and getting Old Man McGucket's memories back was great. But finding a memory tube with their great uncle's name on it? How could they leave without watching it?
Relationships: Dipper Pines & Ford Pines & Mabel Pines & Stan Pines
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56
Collections: Gravity Falls Oneshots





	Curiosity Killed the Cat

**Author's Note:**

> You know when you have an idea for a story and then 2000 words later it's nothing how you planned it to be?  
> That's what this is.

"Hey guys, look at this." Dipper picked up one of the scattered memory tubes. They had just watched McGucket's memories, which had left them all feeling...weird. Something awful had happened in the town, and while finding anything out about the author was important, this was a lot to take in. The old hillbilly had scampered out after the video had finished, to see if there was anything else in the Blind Eye's possession that might belong to him. The group figured they could let him wander and settle down a minute. Dipper had stumbled upon the tube as they looked around the room.

"Woah, is that...?"

"I know, right?" The tube he had picked up was labeled "Stanford F. Pines". The name of their mysterious con man of an uncle.

"I can't believe these guys got Grunkle Stan! We _have_ to watch it!"

"Yeah! We gotta see what ever Mr. Pines has forgotten!"

With no one stopping him, Dipper popped the tube into the TV.

A man hanging his head down appeared on the screen. He was tied to a chair in the middle of a large room, most likely the one the Blind Eye had been using earlier.

"Fiddleford! I told you this was dangerous! Let me out _now_ !" the man growled as he looked up. If you took a few decades off and added sleep deprivation, the man did look like Stan. He had a scowl on his face that was _very_ Stan.

“Stanford, this is for the best,” McGucket’s voice appeared from off screen. “All of this will just feel like a forgotten dream! Anything you want, gone! You can forget...you can forget Stanley!” his voice had that crazy, manic tone to it as he went on. At the mention of the name ‘Stanley’, the man in the chair’s face twisted into something between rage and disgust.

“Do **not** bring him into this. If you let me go, I will pretend this never happened. Now, Fiddleford.” While the man looked like he was about to pass out, there was anger dripping from his voice that suggested he was ready for a fight.

“Ford, listen to me, I just-” McGucket’s voice was cut off as the man in the chair broke free. His arms moved in front of him, and besides a knife in one hand there was something no one could miss - he had six fingers on both hands. The memory ended abruptly as the man swung out towards the recording device.

“What. The hell,” Wendy said, pulling at her hair. Dipper turned to look at his companions. They were all in different states of shock from whatever that memory was. 

“Stan’s the author? That- that can’t...I don’t understand!” Dipper pulled the journal out from his vest. There was no way the author could be his great uncle, right? “Who’s Stanley? None of this makes sense!”

  
  


The ride home was...uncomfortable to say the least. None of them brought what they had seen up to McGucket as they dropped him off at the dump. As they approached the Mystery Shack, they glanced around at each other. What had happened to Stan? Who was this Stanley guy?

They pulled up to the shack and could see Stan through the window. The gift shop was closed, and he was counting out the register for the day. There was _no way_ this could be the same man they saw in the memory, right? He knew Dipper had a journal, but never made a comment about it besides it being a boring read. How could he be the man behind them?

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel had flown out of the car before Soos had even put it in park. 

“Mabel, wait!” Dipper yelled after her. The three left behind quickly rushed after the girl. She had run through into the gift shop, and with a flying leap jumped into her uncle’s arms. Stan had become used to Mabel’s aggressive affection, and caught her in one arm without losing count of the dollar bills in his hands.

“Y’know this isn’t gonna make up for you all cuttin’ work, pumpkin,” Stan said as Mabel wrapped her arms around him. He didn’t sound too mad about them just ditching earlier that day, so it must’ve been a good tourist day. “So y’slackers think you can just wander back in here, huh?” Stan turned to the rest of the group as they hurried through the door. The three of them shifted awkwardly, not knowing what to say after what they had seen.

The best thing about not being the smart twin, was that no one ever expected you to be the one to figure things out. Mabel had learned it was better to let everyone think Dipper was always the one to figure things out. But sometimes her brain was really good at putting pieces together. And this, she hoped, was one of those times. After seeing the guy on the memory TV, it seemed almost too obvious. That wasn’t their grunkle, or at least, not the grunkle she was currently holding on to with all the love in her heart. One thing that had bothered the twins when they got here, was that Stan’s license plate read ”STNLYMBL”. Dipper thought maybe the DMV had made a mistake and Stan was too cheap to fix it. Which at the time made sense. But then a few weeks ago Mabel had seen an old picture in Stan’s office. There were two kids in the picture. One facing the camera was obviously Stan. The other kid had been facing away, and she thought it was her grandpa, so she put it away and forgot about it.

On the drive home something had clicked in her brain, and Mabel felt like her entire world had let out a breath it was holding for who knows how long. Grunkle Stan was the best con artist in the world (or at least, the best one that Mabel knew), so it wouldn’t be that hard to pretend to be someone else. Mabel wasn’t sure why he was doing it, but she knew her Grunkle, and knew he was doing it for a good reason.

And since Mabel was officially the smart twin on this adventure, to balance the universe Dipper needed to be the more impulsive one. Which came out by him yelling, with no restraint to hide his voice cracks, “You’re the author!?” 

Stan dropped the money in his hands. Mable hugged him tighter, rolling her eyes at her brother.

“Kid, what are you talking about?” Stan snapped back at him, doing his best to hide his panic. He attempted to put Mabel down, which only got her to hold him tighter. Soos and Wendy looked at each other, and decided to back off on this one. This one was a Pines Family (TM) issue, and they slowly backed out of the shack.

“Dip-dop! Use your smart guy brain!” Mabel let go of her uncle and skipped her way over to Dipper. She flicked him on the head when she got close enough to him. “That guy wasn’t Grunkle Stan, dum-dum,” she stated. She turned back to Stan, who’s face had drained of color. “We went on this adventure, and discovered this weird cult who erase people’s memories and we found one with the name Stanford Pines on it but that’s not your name, right? Why didn’t you tell us you have a twin?” Mabel wanted to get to the point before Dipper started to spiral in on himself trying to figure this out.

“Mabel I don’t- ” Stan started, not sure how he would get out of this one. 

“Grunkle Stan. Your car says Stanley Mobile, and I’ve listened to Dipper talk about his dumb mystery books enough to know that that’s an important clue.”

Dipper stared at his sister as she said things so matter-of-factly. Hearing her put the clues together made so much sense, but he wasn’t sure how she had figured it out. Stan looked...terrified, which was worse than that time he was angry at him about the whole zombie thing. Stan didn’t get _scared_. This was the man that had fought dinosaurs and zombies to protect his family. Whatever he was hiding they shouldn’t be trying to uncover. 

“I uh, was gonna wait until he got back,” Stan finally said. While he still looked panicked, his face had regained some of its color. “Mabel, how?”

Mabel rapidly explained where they had been for the past few hours, with Dipper correcting her as things got off course. By the time they had finished the story, Stan looked back to normal, and the three of them were sitting on the floor of the gift shop. 

“I lost Ford forty years ago, really,” Stan began.

Getting kicked out at seventeen somehow turned out to be the least of Stan’s problems. In the back of his mind he always knew Pa had wanted to get rid of him. It hadn’t hurt all that much to be kicked to the curb by him. What hurt was Ford not even trying to defend him, or even saying goodbye. If Ford had at least returned the high-six, he wouldn’t have been so lost. But instead it felt like his heart had been ripped out, and left him an angry shell. 

He made a lot of mistakes, sure. But...he had been a child when he was forced out. There wasn’t a lot he could do, he hadn’t even been able to finish highschool. So selling cheap products seemed like a good idea. It was a constant move into the next thing, to make any money he could.

As the years went on, the things he did just to make it the next day left him feeling like there was no hope left. Of course there were the things he wouldn’t tell the kids. He skipped the parts about drug dealing, the nights he had spent in the beds of strange people, the time he had potentially killed a man. Those were things he had left behind.

When Ford had sent him a postcard, asking him to come to Gravity Falls, how could he say no? But of course it wasn’t to make up. That would’ve been too easy, right? Losing Ford to the portal, even if Ford had just told him to get away, hurt so much more than anything he had been through. He had no idea where the portal had sent him to. He had no idea how long Ford could survive, or if he was even alive.

But the only thing he had ever been good at was protecting Ford. So he hung onto the hope that his brother was out there somewhere. The next thirty years was just that. Hope. The Mystery Shack came out of necessity to save his brother. He didn’t care if Ford hated him. The only thing that mattered was getting him back home. If he found out that Ford wasn’t out there? The Shack would collapse. 

Stan wasn’t sure when he had gotten dust in his eyes, but now tears were freely flowing down his cheeks. Both of the kids had climbed into his lap, and Mabel was trying her best to comfort him. For the first time in thirty years, he had talked about his twin brother.

“It’s ok Grunkle Stan, you’re gonna get him back,” Mabel smiled.

  
  
Getting Soos and Wendy up to speed with everything wasn’t hard. For the next few weeks they helped Stan with the portal. Dipper was the only one who was apprehensive about it. While he wanted to help Stan reunite with his brother (and meet the author), all the warnings in the journals said this was a bad idea. But he knew if he lost Mabel to an interdimensional portal, he would risk everything to get her back. Reading through the journals he found a spell that might help protect them if necessary, and after witnessing Stan punch a unicorn, he figured there was nothing that could hurt them.

Then the day finally came.

Stanford Pines had spent thirty years wandering the multiverse, with one thing on his mind: he had to destroy Bill Cipher. So when the portal to his home dimension opened up right as he had the opportunity to complete his task, all he could feel was anger. He hopped through the portal, so it would close before any of Bill’s weirdness got a foothold through it. 

He had never expected to make it home. He had assumed Stanley would think he was dead. If anything, he was expecting someone else to be tricked by Bill and reactivate the portal. What he had never expected, was a giant, glittery banner reading “Welcome Home Great Uncle Ford!” spanning the entire length of his lab.

“So anyway, if you’re still mad at Grunkle Stan I’m not making you another sweater ever again,” Mabel said, brandishing one of her knitting needles at Ford. He had wanted to be mad at Stan for recklessly restarting the portal. But his welcome home party had caught him off guard. Right now they sat at the kitchen table, himself, Stan, and his great niece and nephew he had just learned about. He had been almost forced into a sweater, designed to match his journals, and somehow fit him perfectly. But upon asking if Mabel would make him another, she had gone into a long rant about sibling love and how Stan was a good man. Even after learning the truth behind everything, she stuck by it.

“I am not mad at Stan,” he lied, receiving a quick poke from the knitting needle. Stan laughed at the yelp he let out.

“Great Uncle Ford, you’re a dum-dum.”

“Sixer, I taught Mabel here about all your tells, nothin’s getting past her,” Stan said, ruffling her hair.

Maybe he could worry about Bill later. For now, they were all safe, and that was all that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: if there's more than 3 characters in a scene I will forget about someone, which is why Soos and Wendy had to leave.  
> Originally I wanted to end it with Stan talking about Ford, but I was writing at 1am and it just kept going, whoops.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
